Inside the Phillies with MLB.com beat writer Todd Zolecki

The Phillies and Mets Are Close

The Phillies can take a four-game lead over the Mets in the National League East with a victory tonight at Citi Field. The first two games of this three-game series have been entertaining, regardless of the outcome. If these games are any indication, it could be another intereresting September.

Here is a look at how these teams match up in a few categories:

Runs per gamePhillies: 5.47Mets: 4.68

Home runsPhillies: 84Mets: 37

AveragePhillies: .263Mets: .279

On-base percentagePhillies: .344Mets: .361

Slugging percentagePhillies: .464Mets: .410

Fielding percentagePhillies: .991Mets: .981

ErrorsPhillies: 19Mets: 41

Starter’s ERAPhillies: 5.29Mets: 4.47

Bullpen ERAPhillies: 3.52Mets: 2.88

I just took a look at Baseball Prospectus’ daily playoff odds report, and they also have this race very close. They gave the Phillies a 44.3 percent chance to win the NL East and a 16.3 percent chance to win the NL Wild Card for a 60.6 percent chance to make the playoffs.

They gave the Mets a 45 percent chance to win the division and a 13.9 percent chance to win the wild card for a 58.9 percent chances to make the postseason.

I’m guessing the reason why the Mets have slightly better odds to win the division than the Phillies is the Mets currently have been overall pitching. But the Phillies have pitched much better recently. The Phillies have a 3.72 ERA since May 15, while the Mets have a 3.86 ERA. The Mets also lost J.J. Putz for about two months because of elbow surgery. But what could be interesting is that the Mets could have Francisco Rodriguez, Putz and Billy Wagner in their bullpen in September if everything goes according to plan.

Might not be a bad idea for the Phillies to build a big lead before then.

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14 Comments

Todd, I pointed out in the other thread that the Mets are leading the NL in hitting with RISP, but they are way down in runs and total bases. They have to score runs one at a time like they did last night. And three of their hits with RISP last night did not score a run from second. They have no power at all, especially in their ballpark. The other night was an abberation when they hit three HR’s. Wright only has 4 HR’s to date and Beltran leads the team with 8.
The defense speaks for itself, as we saw last night. I like our chances.

As Todd stated, it seems our pitching is hopefully coming around despite Hamels and Happ’s so-so outings. Our defense and power # speak for themselves. This has been a great series. Let’s get another “W” tonight and head home for the Bosox.

Mets fans like to exclaim how they have hung in despite all of their injuries. What they neglect to mention is how the Phillies hung in despite their poor pitching to put themselves in a position to take advantage of the Mets injuries. The current Phillies lead is only the beginning. There will be ***-for-tat here and there but the Phillies current lead should trend upward. These last two games have been illustrative of the huge difference between the teams not evident by the 1-1 outcome. All wins are important and carry the same weight in the final outcome. But, my sense is that the disparity shown between the Phillies total game and the Mets total game, makes the outcome of tonight’s contest anticlimactic.

Todd, nice piece however you forgot an importent part. the phillies have a history of finding ways to WIN while the Mutts have a history of finding ways to CHOKE! no questions Phillies win division standing up.

Here is a link to a must read article on the whole Rauuuul issue and the assinine blog. Opened my eyes up (and scares me a bit for the second half .)http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2009/06/10/whats-eating-raul/

fan_in_jerusalem What is it about the article concerning Raul Ibanez, to which you provided the link, that scares you? Here I thought I would read about someone who saw Raul do this or that when it appears to be nothing more than passing on rumor and innuendo. Raul performed better when he went from part-time to full time player. And he is now performing better yet when he goes from a pitchers park to a hitters park. It seems to me that there was a general failure to appreciate his talent early on. Even on the subject of PED nothing has been revealed. It is my understanding that HGH helps to maintain a given level and steroids enhance performance. Since steroids are now the subject of testing that leaves HGH. Unless HGH does the same things as steroids, such as building body mass and strength, HGH ingestion does not explain Raul’s increased performance. I admit that I could be wrong on the effects of HGH but I would think that one would have to be pretty stupid to do it in this day and age. Manny Ramirez only proves this last point.

Great find f-i-j. That should put the rumors to rest for good. While that shows him to be streaky, I’m not worried about him going forward. He is in a very solid lineup for the first time in his life and that’s another reason for his success. Here’s the original article wher it appeared.

pherrisphain, what scares fij is that Raul is seemingly a streaky player. Yes he has always finished with solid numbers but you would have to have some pretty cold stretches in there to hit .326 for 50 games and finish batting .290ish. This kind of scares me too, but so far so good with Raul keeping it up.

What worries me is that he has great streaks for 50-60 games every year and we’ve reached that number of games and he has begun to cool down. I just hope that he isn’t going to have a slow second half now that we got used to his great numbers.

That said, the new park and the line-up he’s in are helping him without a doubt

Pat Burrell was streaky as hell too. Streakiness doesn’t really bother me. As long as the overall production is good at the end of the season, you’ve made the same contribution toward your team winning whether it comes in clumps or is evenly distributed. A double in May counts the same as one in September.

What’s nice about Ibanez’s hitting is that not only is he a power hitter, but he’s a better situational hitter than Burrell was as is evident by his RBI #s. Also as we all know players can go through “streaky” phases because it can be so hard to keep up with such an offensive numbers.

Never occurred to me the article was ominous for reasons other than PEDs. That being said I believe Raul is going to have a career year. This would include HRs in excess of 33 and RBIs in excess of 123 since these are his best career numbers from 2006.

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